COGAN, ORA Tatter (self-released) cd 14.98
Previously only available as a homespun cdr, Ora Cogan's fine Tatter album has now been released on cd with two extra live tracks! Packaged with lovely new artwork in a digipak.
Here's what we had to say about the cd-r:
While on the road Canadian indie songstress Ms Ora Cogan came strolling into our shop with these cd-rs charmingly hand-packaged in cut up old flea market record sleeves. On first glance of the varied decontextualized artworks, you might expect her music to be along the earthy experimental lines of the Bay Area's Jewelled Antler and Jyrk Collectives, but she's definitely coming from a different place -- Salt Spring Island, BC, haha! Seriously though, she's been making good ol' down home, twilight porch swing tunes for the past seven years. Her vocal delivery bears more than a passing resemblance to Ms Jolie Holland's. It possesses that haunting, soulful quality that seems like its source is coming from deep deep within or beyond. Like a mysterious transplant from decades past, it's as though she opens her mouth and a lilting voice from the '20s comes drifting out. It's beautiful in its simplicity, just her and her guitar and a few banjo and back-up vocal additions. Cogan is part of a close knit Canadian folksy sisterhood which includes the Begood Tanyas (some of whom perform on this here album) and Carolyn Mark. If you've a fondness for those ladies (and Ms Holland too), don't wait another second. This is totally for you!
MPEG Stream: "Old Black Swan"
MPEG Stream: "Take Me Home"

COGAN, ORA Tatter (self-released) cd-r 7.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
While on the road Canadian indie songstress Ms Ora Cogan came strolling into our shop with these cd-rs charmingly hand-packaged in cut up old flea market record sleeves. On first glance of the varied decontextualized artworks, you might expect her music to be along the earthy experimental lines of the Bay Area's Jewelled Antler and Jyrk Collectives, but she's definitely coming from a different place -- Salt Spring Island, BC, haha! Seriously though, she's been making good ol' down home, twilight porch swing tunes for the past seven years. Her vocal delivery bears more than a passing resemblance to Ms Jolie Holland's. It possesses that haunting, soulful quality that seems like its source is coming from deep deep within or beyond. Like a mysterious transplant from decades past, it's as though she opens her mouth and a lilting voice from the '20s comes drifting out. It's beautiful in its simplicity, just her and her guitar and a few banjo and back-up vocal additions. Cogan is part of a close knit Canadian folksy sisterhood which includes the Begood Tanyas and Carolyn Mark. If you've a fondness for those ladies (and Ms Holland too), don't wait another second. This is totally for you!
MPEG Stream: "Old Black Swan"
MPEG Stream: "Take Me Home"

COGAN, ORA FEATURING ANNI ROSSI Peep Creek (self-released) cd-r 4.50
Perched on the same weeping willow branch as the lovely folksy likes of her pals Be Good Tanyas and Jolie Holland, Ora Cogan's Tatter (both in its original cd-r format and on the more recent cd release) album has been going about its kindly hushed way, charming the ears of all who've encounter it. Peep Creek is another little homespun release by this Canadian gal. It's a 2-song ep on cdr with packaging fashioned out of recycled lp jackets, sheets of fancy paper and gold star confetti. The two tunes are Spartan and lovely with simply plucked guitar, an occasional cello and lilting vocals that also bring to mind Karen Dalton and Jesse Sykes. Our only complaint is that this is far too short. More, please!
MPEG Stream: "Riverside"

COH 0397post-pop (Mego) 2cd 24.00
Of all the folks involved in the world of ultra stark, minimalist techno and barely there click and glitch, we've always been pretty partial to Ivan Pavlov, aka COH. Not sure exactly what it is, but he always manages to take his stark minimalism somewhere full of life and emotion and energy. What in other hands would be nothing but a sonic experiment, in Pavlov's becomes a song, or a groove, or just a big chunk of sound that resonates with energy and creativity and power. Not sure if the title is supposed to intimate something about the music within and it's supposed relation to classic pop constructs. But in no way is this Pavlov's poppiest material, not by a long shot. That's not to say it isn't great, it is, it's just much more barebones and barely there. Disc one sounds like Neu! after being dipped in acid, so all the flesh and organs have liquified and sloughed off, leaving just a skeletal framework, an intricate assemblage of static and stutter, hiss and click, with an innate funkiness that might just be flecks of melody clinging desperately to the already picked clean bones. Disc B is a reissue of a 1997 release originally released in a limited run of SEVEN copies and given only to friends. This disc is a little more all over the place, while the recurring theme is still definitely Pavlov's microscopic glitch funk minimalism, there are random moments of Ikeda like test tones, stuttering synth squelch, and once in a while even a little bleeping blooping outer space swoosh. Packaged in a cool geometrically abstract double digipak.
MPEG Stream: "Da Kota Rap"
MPEG Stream: "Apex (Twig)"
MPEG Stream: "Post-Pop Reprise"

COH 20' to 2000 (Raster) cd 14.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
The fourth in the monthly series of 20 minute compositions that countdown the end of the Millenium. COH has provided perhaps the most 'listenable' so far (which isn't to hard after the gut wrenching sine waves of Ryoji Ikeda's contribution for March)... slippery layers of soothing drones. Drifting and dreamy minimalism.

COH Above Air (Eskaton) cd 16.98
Russian sound artist Ivan Pavlov aka COH returns with a new album of ultra minimal, ultra pristine electronic ambience, a tribute to recently passed Coil mainman Jhonn Balance, who was a good friend and frequent collaborator of Pavlov's. COH, for us, is best when Pavlov is manipulating organic sounds into warm rich swells of sound, most notably on the LP-only Seasons (now out of print). But while Above Air is a much more clinical affair, Pavlov manages to somehow imbue each song with all manner of warmth and emotion. He may be a master of the glitch and the click, and the digital squelch, he proves once again that he can create art, feeling and emotion with the slightest of sounds. Above Air is a subtle, dark, contemplative mix of whispery sine waves, distant chimes, speaker static and white noise, tolling bells, gently ringing chimes, an ultra subtle glitch here and there, creating fetal rhythms, that never quite mature, remaining just another layer of sound, haunting electronic drones that waver and drift as if being broadcast from afar, pulsing chopped melodic fragments, all deftly woven into a dark but somehow surprisingly sanguine elegy for Balance. The whole record is minimal, but active and alive, subtle, but infused with disarmingly complex arrangements and dark emotion, a bit like the best Coil records, which we're sure is exactly the sort of memorial Pavlov intended.
MPEG Stream: "Faster Than Sound"
MPEG Stream: "Between Heaven And Earth"

COH Electric Electric (Mego) 12" 10.98
After the gorgeously organic and delicately melodic experimentalism of the last few Coh releases, this decidedly monochromatic, almost straight techno 12" came as a bit of a surprise. That said, this is a pretty engaging platter of head nodding electronic bliss. Side one is a cold and minimal digital glitchscape, with clipped pulses, humming static, squeaking creaking digital errata, and cyclical muted minor key melodies that slowly build in intensity. Halfway through the side, the track seemingly repeats, this time with a little extra dynamic flair, more grit and a more solid throb, before dissipating into a serene wash of isolated notes, sounding a bit like a slowed down thumb piano. Quite beautiful. The second side starts off with a little bit of classic Kraftwerk major key melodic bounce, but quickly settles into similarly spaced out, hypno-throb territory. Imagine Plastikman on speed, or 4 on the floor techno played by Pole, or Gas trying to do 'real' dance music. Strangely hypnotic and pretty great.

COH Enter Tinnitus (Noton/Rastermusic) cd 15.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
A lot more action packed and a bit more accessible than most Noton / Rastermusic releases (like Noto, Miko Vainio, Kim Cascone, and Signal) but still just as minimal as fuck in places. After a minute of ear shredding schreech and a few downright 'poppy' moments, the record settles down into looped out bliss. Beeps, clicks and stuttering tones coalesce into a soothing minimal whole. An exceptional record for fans of Oval.

COH Iron (Wavetrap) cd 15.98
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Raster-Noton contributor Coh (aka Ivan Pavlov) has dedicated his Wavetrap album "Iron" to heavy metal fans all over the world and has even given some of the tracks metal puns for titles ('For Whom The Dell Falls' and 'Rubbing Free' for example). Of all of the electron modulators populating the Raster-Noton roster, Coh has always had the keenest pop sensibility, often infusing his near catchy melodies with static-laden feedback bursts and pure sinewaves. "Iron" is Coh's most aggressive recording to date, filled with staticky melodies that soften (only a little) his morass of digital black box effects and synthetic noise. While you'd be hard pressed to hear anything definitively metal on this record (i.e. guitar solos, double bass-kick blastbeats, wailing vocalizations, Satan), the massive ebb and flow of the music takes its starting point from the epic heaviosity of metal and turns it into something uniquely Coh. Recommended!
RealAudio clip: "Annum Per Annum"

COH Love Uncut (Eskaton) cd 10.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
"Love Uncut" is the newest EP from Russian electron engineer Coh and it features vocal contributions from various members of Coil. More so than any of the other Raster-Noton artists, Coh is not afraid of the power of the pop song, turning Pan Sonic minimalist techno into tense post-New Wave soundscapes. Coh has in effect updated the early sound of Coil that peaked around "Love's Secret Domain," as a funhouse distortion of sexually explicit club anthems and investigations into what is "hidden" beneath mainstream culture. This short EP opens with a track credited as a cover of Soft Cell's "Meet Murder My Angel," yet with Coil's Peter Christopherson malevolently muttering in subterranean caverns, it sounds more like a remake of the early Coil track "The Sewage Worker's Birthday Party." Coh deconstructs another '80s iconic classic in the cover of Vicious Pink's "Fetish" with significantly more references to the original with the Morroder like synth arrpegiations intact, but replacing the big Disco whip cracks with rapid fire glicth pops. By the time Balance begins his lunatic ranting about the unclean hospitals on "Love's Septic Domain" (ha!), the Dennis Cooper-esque allegories of abject sex and medicinal hallucinations start to become apparent, yet sadly the EP comes to an end far too quickly. While this is an excellent EP, I hope that Coh and Coil will collaborate for a full album!
RealAudio clip: "Health and Deficiency"
RealAudio clip: "Fffetish"
RealAudio clip: "My Angel"

COH Mask of Birth (Mego) cd 16.98
According to Raster-Noton who first released this album back in 1999, "Mask Of Birth" was the debut recording by Coh, the Russian born programmer Ivan Pavlov. Originally, this was a vinyl-only release published by Raster-Noton, who made a point of stating that they had a difficult time cutting the frequencies of these recordings onto wax. A mere three years later, Mego has taken up the task of re-issuing this album on CD, a medium more appropriate for such dynamic frequencies. Despite his origins with Raster's pristine electronics, Coh has continued to present himself as a post-techno reincarnation of the bleak industrial arpeggiations from the early-'80s, sharing the common urgency of early Cabaret Voltaire, Coil, Fad Gadget, Konstruktivitis, Skinny Puppy and the like. He's just been using much more high tech gear than abused samplers and overblown drum machines. After his recent collaborations with Coil on the "Love Uncut" EP, the revisitation to his first productions draws the same conclusion of his historical citations. The darkened loops, tremolo vibrations, and static pulsations have similar tonalities to his peers on Raster (Noto, Mika Vainio, and Komet), but the structure of the his music is fixed back in time on those aforementioned references. As many of those bands have been forgotten, marginalized, or dismissed, Coh's electronica revisionism is certainly welcome!
RealAudio clip: "Hurt Later"
RealAudio clip: "Utopia - Me Too"

COH Mort Aux Vaches (Staalplaat) cd 21.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
For his contribution to the "Mort Aux Vaches" series of radio broadcasts commissioned by VPRO radio, Coh (the Russian laptop technician Ivan Pavlov) continues in his electronic revisionism which defined the successes on his albums "Mask Of Birth" and "Enter Tinnitus." Again, Coh offers a constant fluctuation of arpeggiated patterns that are post-techno recapitulations of '80s new wave. Be forewarned, the buzz and blurp breakdowns may trigger visions of a bathing robot (not necessarily a bad thing!) - sonic splashing and bubbling, submersion and resurfacing throughout this 38 minute track. Seemingly straightforward techno beats emerge, but as in this track's mid-stretch of whirring, sawing rhythm, before you know it Coh has drenched it in hiss and rumble until it dissolves into something altogether different. Quite pleasant reminders of Fad Gadget, Konstruktivitis, and Giorgio Moroder with all of the kitsch elements filtered out. Limited to 1000 copies and packaged in a silkscreened piece of folded woodpanel-patterned plastic.
RealAudio clip: "Excerpt 1"
RealAudio clip: "Excerpt 2"

COH Netmork (souRce) cd 16.98
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From his dedication to 'heavy metal fans all over the world' on "Iron" and his recombination of '80s synth pop on "Love Uncut," Coh (aka Russian electron engineer Ivan Pavlov) has presented some unusual concepts to guide his post-techno explorations. Less likely to invoke readings as a piece of irony, the "Netmork" album is a speculation on the hidden language of the telephone, specifically stated as "digitally encoded human emotions running through solid darkness ('mörk') of telephone wires, electromagnetic ghosts of Love and Hate haunting the network after all conversations are made, merging, interacting, turning into each other, disappearing and reborn again." Coh actualizes his concepts through buzzing feedback that gets sequentially darker and more intense over the course of the album. At the album's onset, the electronic squiggles glisten and shimmer with occasional pinpricks of glitched digital feedback, giving way to perhaps those sounds' source material - the indeterminant dialing of a series of numbers on a phone (which made Byram think that Pavlov got bored with the prettiness of those sounds and just called up some friends to get a beer). Instead, the album takes a turn towards the darkside through incrementally building arpeggiations similar to early PanSonic, making for a fine album with an intriguing conceptual framework to match the well-executed electronics.
RealAudio clip: "netmork, part i: dark inside telephone wire?"
RealAudio clip: "undercosm"

COH Patherns (Raster-Noton) cd ep 16.98
The glitchy, streaming rhythms from Russian electronic musician Ivan Pavlov (aka Coh) have always been difficult for us to write about because they are so immediate and just simply work so well. Yeah, our purple prose benefits from the context of elfin types scurrying around the forest with contact mics and then overlaying those sounds with some fucking heavy doom riffs that aim to crack the skull of Odin; so when a prolific technician like Pavlov constantly churns out an extremely consistent body of work we can be at a loss for words. Don't dismay, we'll do our best to blather on about this brilliant 24 minute EP. Over the past six or seven years, Pavlov has released tons of recordings for heavy-weight avant electronica labels such as Mego, Raster-Noton, and Eskaton (one of the labels run by Coil); and many of these recordings do essentially the same thing: generate tense yet hypnotic electronic pieces which smartly synthesize a number of electronica references. There's the futuristic Moroder arpeggiations, the erratic digital pixel smears of Stilluppsteypa's glitch-n-drone, the extravagant audio alchemy worthy of comparisons to the best Coil recordings, and the release-and-stop dynamics borrowed from the finest Model 500 techno. Given how druggy these repetitive algorithms are, it's no wonder that the sidereal psychonauts Coil were so taken by Pavlov's work. Like pretty much everything he touches, Patherns is extraordinary.
MPEG Stream: "Path #01"
MPEG Stream: "Path #02"

COH Seasons (Idea) 2lp 26.00
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
Of all the glitch guys, as I like to call them -- Noto, Komet, Byetone, and the entire Raster-Noton raster -- Coh's Ivan Pavlov, has always been the one to take the glitch into uncharted territory. See Coh's bizarre 'Love Uncut' record from a while back and his bizarre 'metal tribute' record 'Iron' which was decidedly non-metallic. So while this latest record is not necessarily a surprise, it is surprisingly beautiful and once again shows Coh to be truly original. The glitch takes a back seat on these 4 seasonal recordings. Instead the computer is used Oval-style, to take organic sounds and transform them. 'The Colour Of Beauty, Summer Is Red' is by far the most beautiful track Pavlov has ever recorded, with creaking swells of violin, warm and thick, with a definite 20th century classical vibe, lots of space and dynamics. Dreamy but also ominous. Quite reminiscent of Oval's 'Diskont', but chopped up and spread out into a glacial rhythm of throbs and pulses, dramatic swells and vaccuum like silences. So nice. 'Winter Brooding Underneath' is another winner, a massive drone sculpted from slowly bowed cello, huge, rumbling, slowly-shifting low end, with the timbre of the cello stretched as far as (in)humanly possible into an oscillating sea of lower register vibrations. Breathtaking. 'As Ripe As Autumn's Tears' is a totally spare pleak-scape of single reverb drenched piano notes ringing out into space, bookended by field recordings of rain. Skeletal and lovely. Finally, 'Springs Come Shooting: Make Love, Make War', is a Pavlov guitar solo, clattery and scratchy and noodly, but chopped and recontextualized into some decidedly non-guitar-like sounds. This track is as close as this record gets to actual 'electronica' or 'techno', with a steady, gradually mutating, electronic rhythm sounding a bit like a super lo-fi Kraftwerk.
Comes on MASSIVE 180 gram vinyl in a gorgeous, super thick gatefold sleeve, with a painting for each track.
RealAudio clip: "The Colour Of Beauty, Summer Is Red"
RealAudio clip: "Winter Brooding Underneath"

COH Vox Tinnitus (Raster-Noton) cd 15.98
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Coh's take on minimalist electronica isn't all that different from his Raster / Noton labelmates (Noto, Komet, and the 20' to 2000 artists) with a pure tone bliss borrowing heavily from neo academic Germanic techno, but Coh has always had a thing for pop music. And with vocal assistance from Annie Anxiety (ex-Crass) and Coil's Sleazy & Balance, Coh's electronic modulations get even closer to a new form of twisted avant-pop.

COHEED & CAMBRIA The Second Stage Turbing Blade (Equal Vision) cd 13.98
We raved and raved about the new Coheed And Cambria record a few lists back. It even made a couple of our best of the year lists. Totally epic and proggy emo metal core. Heavy on the prog. With ridiculously amazing vocals somewhere between Geddy Lee from Rush, Freddie Mercury, Jeff Buckley and the guy from Shudder To Think. 10+ minute songs, ridiculous time signatures, hooks galore and that distinctive wail. So fucking great! Andee and Jim still listen to it in the store all the time! Andee and Jim -also- loved it enough to go to Bottom Of The Hill and check them out in person. And it was so awesome. Not only was it all ages so the place was packed with kids in their best emo finery, but EVERYONE was singing along to EVERY song at the top of their lungs. Even the kids in the pit. Every 'Woahhhh' and 'La La' was a deafening roar. The best part was the band though. Sort of drunk, a bit sloppy, they were a dishevelled, bearded, un-emo looking mess. Every between song break was met with screams for more, and the band would just deflect the requests with the explanation "We're fucking old. And tired. Let us take a fucking break. I can barely breathe up here." It was so satisfying, being old guys ourselves. The singer even had to go get his glasses to read the set list. So cool! But the real point of this story is, they played a bunch of songs neither of us recognized, but that instantly got stuck in our heads, all of which are thankfully on this here record, and all of which kick serious ass. Not nearly as polished or well produced as the new one, but it hardly matters because the songs are so goddamn good. If you haven't bought the new one, In Keeping Secrets Of Silent Earth: 3 maybe start there, but you certainly won't regret starting here either. Hell, buy both. You won't be sorry.
MPEG Stream: "Devil In Jersey City"
MPEG Stream: "Everything Evil"

COHEED AND CAMBRIA In Keeping Secrets Of Silent Earth: 3 (Equal Vision) cd 13.98
Emo doesn't get any more epic than this. Start with the name, Coheed And Cambria? What the fuck? And then song titles like "The Velourium Camper Pts. I-III", "Three Evils (Embodied In Love And Shadow)" and "Cuts Marked In The March Of Men". But the music is where things get really weird, and epic. Lengthy and proggy song structures, huge crunchy metal guitars, convoluted and improbable rhythms, and vocals...woah, the vocals. Somewhere between Freddie Mercury, Jeff Buckley, Geddy Lee, the guy from Shudder To Think, and the guy from Cyclefly, with a gorgeously crystalline high tenor, that swoops and soars, not silly like, say, the Darkness, but more graceful and dramatic, and totally gorgeous. The title track is a metalcore masterpiece, but what sets it apart is the clean vocals throughout, the almost-Pinback sounding breakdown in the middle, and the Peter Gabriel like epic reprise, complete with a huge chorus of back up vocals. The record is super varied though, from Get Up Kids style emo romps, to metalcore crunch, to progressive weirdness, to MTV metal, with death metal breakdowns, super sappy pop choruses, complicated and ridiculous instrumental breaks, and a hidden track that manages to be so bizarre and silly and prog with multiple parts, SUPER dramatic vocals, lyrics like "My robot will never die..." and hyper complex instrumental segments, and still sound right at home with rest of the record. Sounds a bit like the bands stab at a grand musical a la the Who's Tommy. This gets played SO much in the store (this hit the spot for Jim's emo sweet tooth) and I (Andee) haven't stopped listening to it at home since I got it. Even saw their video on MTV2 which is really bizarre! But only made me like them more. Thought they'd be skinny little emo boys, but they're sort of bearded, husky, regular guys, and one of them sports a wicked rock-fro that would make Buzz from the Melvins proud!
MPEG Stream: "In Keeping Secrets Of Silent Earth: 3"
MPEG Stream: "Cuts Marked In The March Of Men"

COHEED AND CAMBRIA In Keeping Secrets Of Silent Earth: 3 (Equal Vision) 2lp 13.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
Emo doesn't get any more epic than this. Start with the name, Coheed And Cambria? What the fuck? And then song titles like "The Velourium Camper Pts. I-III", "Three Evils (Embodied In Love And Shadow)" and "Cuts Marked In The March Of Men". But the music is where things get really weird, and epic. Lengthy and proggy song structures, huge crunchy metal guitars, convoluted and improbable rhythms, and vocals...woah, the vocals. Somewhere between Freddie Mercury, Jeff Buckley, Geddy Lee, the guy from Shudder To Think, and the guy from Cyclefly, with a gorgeously crystalline high tenor, that swoops and soars, not silly like, say, the Darkness, but more graceful and dramatic, and totally gorgeous. The title track is a metalcore masterpiece, but what sets it apart is the clean vocals throughout, the almost-Pinback sounding breakdown in the middle, and the Peter Gabriel like epic reprise, complete with a huge chorus of back up vocals. The record is super varied though, from Get Up Kids style emo romps, to metalcore crunch, to progressive weirdness, to MTV metal, with death metal breakdowns, super sappy pop choruses, complicated and ridiculous instrumental breaks, and a hidden track that manages to be so bizarre and silly and prog with multiple parts, SUPER dramatic vocals, lyrics like "My robot will never die..." and hyper complex instrumental segments, and still sound right at home with rest of the record. Sounds a bit like the bands stab at a grand musical a la the Who's Tommy. This gets played SO much in the store (this hit the spot for Jim's emo sweet tooth) and I (Andee) haven't stopped listening to it at home since I got it. Even saw their video on MTV2 which is really bizarre! But only made me like them more. Thought they'd be skinny little emo boys, but they're sort of bearded, husky, regular guys, and one of them sports a wicked rock-fro that would make Buzz from the Melvins proud!
MPEG Stream: "In Keeping Secrets Of Silent Earth: 3"
MPEG Stream: "Cuts Marked In The March Of Men"

COHEN, IRA The Invasion Of Thunderbolt Pagoda (Bastet) dvd 34.00
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A totally over the top, drug drenched, swirl of chaotic visuals known as The Invasion Of Thunderbolt Pagoda, a 1968 psychedelic film created by Ira Cohen, with a completely gorgeous abstract soundtrack by Angus Maclise, Tony Conrad, Henry Flynt among others. Recently screened at the Whitney Museum, available here for the first time on DVD, color corrected (and OH! the colors...) and transferred from 16mm.
Creepy sepia toned footage of a barefoot little girl walking through the woods, jungle tribes digging in the mud, unearthing a mysterious bug eyed shaman, intercut with tripped out kaleidoscopic collages of blinking eyes and naked ladies dressed up like ancient forest dwellers or aliens, all engaging in strange rituals and some super strange spasmodic dancing. And that's just the intro!
The actual film is a dizzying blend of wild costumes, incredible makeup and super saturated colors, filmed through all sorts of distorted funhouse mirror lenses or filmed through rippling water, or sheets of mylar, everything twisting and shimmering, shapes shifting, bodies writhing, cartoonish animal costumes, a totally over the top acid fried TRIP. Take a step back and it's a bunch of wild drugged out hippies, spending a weekend drugging and drinking and dressing up, but look deep, and it's easy to get sucked in ad get lost in the spinning dizzying whirl of colors and characters. The soundtrack is incredible, a buzzing raga like expanse of slowly mutating, endlessly drifting vocal shimmer, sounding a lot like AQ faves Grouper or Valet. Worth it even if you just wanted to turn your TV off and listen to the druggy dreamy sounds, but then you'd miss out on the retina melting visuals, as close as some of us will ever get to a bonafide acid trip for sure.
Gorgeously packaged, with TONS of extra goodies. Two alternate soundtracks, one from Sunburned Hand Of The Man, the other from Acid Mothers Temple SWR, a new short film by Ira Cohen created from never before scene 16mm outtakes, with a new soundtrack, a slideshow of mylar photographs with a soundtrack by Angus Maclise and director's commentary by Ira Cohen.
Also includes a big booklet, packed with tons of tripped out imagery including stills from the film and mylar photos by Ira Cohen. Also poetry by Maclise and Cohen, as well as liner notes and critical texts. So awesome. And we've just received the last ten copies we're gonna ever be able to get, so buy now or never...

COHEN, LEONARD Dear Heather (Sony) cd 16.98
Doesn't it seem that Mr. Leonard Cohen has always been there? Ever the wise elder statesman, he enters his seventh decade with this new album! His voice still offers comforting solace, gentlemanly charm and occasionally a saucy wink. Over the years, his intimate speak-sing delivery has become increasingly more spoken than sung, however his omnipresent background singing ladies remain as elegant and ageless as ever.
MPEG Stream: "Go No More A-Roving"
MPEG Stream: "Dear Heather"

COHEN, LEONARD Field Commander Cohen (Columbia) cd 17.98
Live Leonard, a wonderful previously unreleased performance from his 1979 world tour. Recorded in England. If you've never heard Cohen's sad-eyed, deep-voiced, world-weary storytelling songs, now is the time. Features "Bird On The Wire" and other classic Cohen cuts.

COHEN, LEONARD Ten New Songs (Sony) cd 17.98
This is Leonard Cohen's first release in 9 years. Rumour is, he spent a good amount of that time in a Zen monastery. His voice still has that same soul shattering, breathy deep quality that it always had. The years have treated him well it seems. This record is more smoothly produced than previous releases and absent are the crazy child background vocals. 'Ten New Songs' seems as much collaborator Sharon Robinson's record as Cohen's--she cowrote all the songs, plays most of the instruments (primarily a synth that seems to have plucked from a cheezy 1984 power ballad), and accompanies Cohen's gloomy croak with her own sweet crooning. Sadly this record is missing the harder edge and jaded air that I liked about his earlier stuff. The slick production sort of bugs me, but I still love -that- voice and his crazy fucked up mind.
RealAudio clip: "In My Secret Life"
RealAudio clip: "Here It Is"

COHEN-SOLAL, JEAN Flutes Libres (MIO Records) cd 14.98
BACK IN STOCK, last ever copies however as the MIO label has sadly chosen to close up shop! So we grabbed a few of our faves (this and the Flamen Dialis). Here's our review from when we first listed this:
The time has come. That very special time, that only comes once in a long, long while. Open the gates! Unfurl the red carpet! Prepare thyselves! It's time to induct yet another record, into the elite and exclusive pantheon of Andee's favorite flute records. The Pantheon currently looks about like this: Phill Niblock's Four Full Flutes, Eberhard Blum's Berlin To Buffalo, Comus' First Utterance, Koukiji Kougezan's The Live [11th] Final Hyakusenmansyuuraku, Byard Lancaster's It's Not Up To Us, the first four Osanna records, Za Frumi, Alan Silva, Jethro Tull and pretty much all Roland Kirk and Eric Dolphy. Well, you can now add French flautist/double bassist Jean Cohen-Solal to that list. Flute Libres & Captain Tarthopom collects Cohen-Solal's first two ridiculously rare albums originally released in 1971 and 1973, on one cd. Long considered progressive rock masterpieces, these two records feature Cohen-Solal's ultra personal take on classical, jazz and avant garde, even mixing in some psychedelic rock and ambient minimalism to the mix. The disc starts off with a jazzy psych rock workout, sort of funky, with a boppy rhythm and wailing flutes, very catchy and cool. But from that point on, the record travels down a much darker path, as the jazz and funk and rock dissipate into spacy, shimmery soundscapes, reminiscent of Tangerine Dream, Pink Floyd or even Taj Mahal Travellers, with warm melodic swells, shimmery washes of cymbals and gongs, and lonely notes, flute and double bass, swathed in reverb or wah, and sent to drift through the ether. Things rev up later on, adding shuffling jazz rhythms, dizzying flute melodies and faraway freakout guitars, channelling Magma and Focus, weaving meandering, propulsive and progressive, spacerock and jazzrock mantras. So good.
MPEG Stream: "Concerto Cyclique"
MPEG Stream: "Raga Du Matin"
MPEG Stream: "Matiere"

COHRAN, PHILIP & THE ARTISTIC HERITAGE ENSEMBLE The Malcolm X Memorial (Kelan Zulu / Katalyst Entertainment) cd 16.98
Philip Cohran is a true unsung hero in the history of cosmic jazz. He played with Sun Ra in the late '50s and '60s and was a cofounder of the AACM (Association for the Advancement of Creative Musicians). In the late '60s he ran the Afro-Arts Theater in Chicago, which was the location of this mesmerizing concert that Cohran performed with the Artistic Heritage Ensemble as a tribute to the late Malcolm X. Originally released on LP on Cohran's Zulu label, the record has been out of print for ages and commanded big dollars from those lucky enough to track down a copy. Lucky for us this amazing performance is now available on cd for the first time. The first track starts a reeeal slow before the fire starts to burn hotter and hotter as the performance goes on. With an ensemble that included trumpet, trombone, tuba, conga, guitar, bass, percussion, sax, cornet and vocals from Sister Ella Pearl Jackson, this is some seriously forward thinking jazz, just dripping with soul and consciousness. Like the more melodic moments of the Art Ensemble Of Chicago and early Sun Ra, this is totally essential and one of the best jazz reissues we've heard in quite a while!
MPEG Stream: "Malcolm X"
MPEG Stream: "El Hajj Malik El Shabazz"

COHRAN, PHILIP & THE ARTISTIC HERITAGE ENSEMBLE The Malcolm X Memorial (Mississippi) lp 16.98
This jazz classic, now available on vinyl, housed in a super deluxe gatefold jacket, another awesome limited lp artifact from Portland's Mississippi Records...
Philip Cohran is a true unsung hero in the history of cosmic jazz. He played with Sun Ra in the late '50s and '60s and was a cofounder of the AACM (Association for the Advancement of Creative Musicians). In the late '60s he ran the Afro-Arts Theater in Chicago, which was the location of this mesmerizing concert that Cohran performed with the Artistic Heritage Ensemble as a tribute to the late Malcolm X. Originally released on LP on Cohran's Zulu label, the record has been out of print for ages and commanded big dollars from those lucky enough to track down a copy. Lucky for us this amazing performance is now available on cd for the first time. The first track starts reeeeal slow before the fire starts to burn hotter and hotter as the performance goes on. With an ensemble that included trumpet, trombone, tuba, conga, guitar, bass, percussion, sax, cornet and vocals from Sister Ella Pearl Jackson, this is some seriously forward thinking jazz, just dripping with soul and consciousness. Like the more melodic moments of the Art Ensemble Of Chicago and early Sun Ra, this is totally essential and one of the best jazz reissues we've heard in quite a while!
MPEG Stream: "Malcolm X"
MPEG Stream: "El Hajj Malik El Shabazz"

COHRAN, PHILIP AND THE ARTISTIC HERITAGE ENSEMBLE On The Beach (Aestuarium) cd 14.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
This is a second pressing of "On The Beach," compiling tracks from the late '60s output of Philip Cohran, one of the founders of Chicago's AACM and early member of Sun Ra's Arkestra. While Sun Ra looked toward outer space for inspiration, Phil Cohran (himself an astronomer and mathematician) and his ensemble found manifestations of cosmic spirituality here on earth. Mining different musical traditions such as jazz, rhythm & blues, european classical, "eastern" music, but most specifically reaching into elements of african experience and heritage, the ensemble builds complex rhythms around melodic elements usually provided by Cohran's "frankiphone", a georgeously buzzing bell-like electrified thumb piano of his own design.
On "Unity," which appeared on the excellent Oulele comp a couple years ago, the percussion-heavy groove is anchored by the steady droning of Cohran's violin uke (I presume another of Cohran's designs?). The results go beyond "jazz," even when adding modifiers like avant- or afro-. This is soul music on a higher plane. So beautiful and powerful, this work fits into a larger picture that includes the afro-centric work of John Coltrane, Art Ensemble of Chicago's free-funk explorations with Fontella Bass, and Fela Kuti's consciousness raising jams. Members of the Artistic Heritage Ensemble went on to play with the likes of Miles Davis and Earth, Wind & Fire.
The cd is lovingly packaged in a hand letterpressed sleeve and contains two more tracks than the vinyl version.
RealAudio clip: "Minstrel"
RealAudio clip: "Unity"

COHRAN, PHILIP AND THE ARTISTIC HERITAGE ENSEMBLE On The Beach (Kelan Zulu / Katalyst Entertainment) cd 11.98
Finally, this avant afro-jazz classic has been repressed, repackaged and re-released. On The Beach compiles tracks from the late '60s output of Philip Cohran, one of the founders of Chicago's AACM and an early member of Sun Ra's Arkestra. While Sun Ra looked toward outer space for inspiration, Phil Cohran (himself an astronomer and mathematician) and his ensemble found manifestations of cosmic spirituality here on earth. Mining different musical traditions such as jazz, rhythm & blues, European classical, "Eastern" music, but most specifically reaching into elements of African experience and heritage, the ensemble builds complex rhythms around melodic elements usually provided by Cohran's "frankiphone", a gorgeously buzzing bell-like electrified thumb piano of his own design.
On "Unity," which appeared on the excellent Oulele comp a few years ago, the percussion-heavy groove is anchored by the steady droning of Cohran's violin uke. The results go beyond "jazz," even when adding modifiers like avant- or afro-. This is soul music on a higher plane. So beautiful and powerful, this work fits into a larger picture that includes the afro-centric work of John Coltrane, Art Ensemble of Chicago's free-funk explorations with Fontella Bass, and Fela Kuti's consciousness raising jams. Members of the Artistic Heritage Ensemble went on to play with the likes of Miles Davis and Earth, Wind & Fire.
The cd is lovingly packaged in a hand letterpressed sleeve and contains two more tracks than the vinyl version.
RealAudio clip: "Minstrel"
RealAudio clip: "Unity"

COHRAN, PHILIP AND THE ARTISTIC HERITAGE ENSEMBLE On The Beach (Aestuarium) lp 9.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
This is a second pressing of "On The Beach," compiling tracks from the late '60s output of Philip Cohran, one of the founders of Chicago's AACM and early member of Sun Ra's Arkestra. While Sun Ra looked toward outer space for inspiration, Phil Cohran (himself an astronomer and mathematician) and his ensemble found manifestations of cosmic spirituality here on earth. Mining different musical traditions such as jazz, rhythm & blues, european classical, "eastern" music, but most specifically reaching into elements of african experience and heritage, the ensemble builds complex rhythms around melodic elements usually provided by Cohran's "frankiphone", a georgeously buzzing bell-like electrified thumb piano of his own design.
On "Unity," which appeared on the excellent Oulele comp a couple years ago, the percussion-heavy groove is anchored by the steady droning of Cohran's violin uke (I presume another of Cohran's designs?). The results go beyond "jazz," even when adding modifiers like avant- or afro-. This is soul music on a higher plane. So beautiful and powerful, this work fits into a larger picture that includes the afro-centric work of John Coltrane, Art Ensemble of Chicago's free-funk explorations with Fontella Bass, and Fela Kuti's consciousness raising jams. Members of the Artistic Heritage Ensemble went on to play with the likes of Miles Davis and Earth, Wind & Fire.
The cd is lovingly packaged in a hand letterpressed sleeve and contains two more tracks than the vinyl version.

COIL ...And The Ambulance Died In His Arms (Threshold) cd 26.00
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COIL Astral Disaster (Loci / World Serpant) cd 19.98
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The year 2000 looks to be a busy year for Coil, after so many moons of sonic hybernation. "Astral Disaster" is the follow up to "Musick to Listen to in the Dark" and is equally as limited (only 2000). But that number is better than the original edition of "Astral Disaster" (a vinyl edition of only 99 copies!!!). Originally recorded on Samhain under the Thames River, "Astral Disaster" has been reworked into four lengthy pieces of Coil's techno-pagan ritual music that falls between the Coil aesthetic of the Solstice series of 1998 and "Time Machine"'s droning.

COIL Black Antlers (Threshold House) 2cd 26.00
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This album gives us chills; and for those of you acquainted with the turbulent history of Coil, you will probably have the same jaw-dropping reaction. Almost two years ago, Coil's psycho-pharmacologically inclined founder Jhonn Balance tumbled over a bannister in his home whilst on a several week long vodka binge. When his partner Peter Christopherson found him shortly thereafter, he was unconscious. Despite a quick response from the local authorities, Balance died from his injuries. Death has always surrounded Coil: from the post-industrial recordings of Scatology and Horse Rotovator, when themes of AIDS, the apocalypse, death, and homoeroticism all melded into a nightmarish kaleidoscope, through the later records which held an amorphous mysticism pushed to the brink by Balance's prodigious chemical abuse. But as Balance growls that "most accidents happen close to home" on Black Antlers' "Sex With Sun Ra," the words strike with such a clarity as to make us wonder if Balance himself had any foresight into his own demise. As potent as the lyrical content is for Black Antlers, it's Coil's exquisitely darkened electronica which makes Black Antlers a such an exceptional recording. To be completely honest, we've not always loved much of Coil's material after the seminal 1991 recording Love's Secret Domain; but their final recordings (Black Antlers, Remote Viewer, and The Ape Of Naples -- all of which had been completed / reworked by Christopherson after Balance's death) show just how great they really were. Black Antlers is riveted by blood-stained electronics, tensely rendered arppegiations, and sinister atmospheres that often teeter into melancholy. And yet another minor-key, marimba-driven version of "Teenage Lightning" appears on Black Antlers (marking at least the fourth time that Coil has returned to this song). Altogether, Black Antlers is a brilliant if tragic affair.
A version of Black Antlers appeared a couple years back as a limited edition cd-r, but for this 2006 cd edition, Christopherson has expanded that supposedly rougher mix with additional material and a polished production.
MPEG Stream: "Sex With Sun Ra (Part One - Saturnalia)"
MPEG Stream: "The Wraiths And Strays Of Paris"
MPEG Stream: "Black Antler's (Where's Your Child?)"

COIL Constant Shallowness Leads To Evil (Chalice / World Serpent) cd 19.98
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This has been a very productive year for Coil, with mixed results coming from so much activity after the long hibernation. "Constant Shallowness Leads To Evil" is a drastic turn for Coil away from their lunar drones and towards a more abrasive sound, with what sounds like manipulated recordings of rumbling diesel engines or malfunctioning amplifier tremolo. The clatter of cutlery and an intrusion of John Balance's seductive voice breaks up (adds to?) the dissonance of this noise production. Definitely better than the last couple of offerings from Coil, but their quality control could still see some improvement overall...
Packaged in one of those plastic clam shell cases (a la the 20' to 2000 series).

COIL Horse Rotovator (World Serpent) cd 15.98
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We here at Aquarius haven't agreed with the critical acclaim that's greeted the recent output of Coil; however, we do agree that their second proper album "Horse Rotovator" should still be viewed as one of the great electronic albums of the 1980s. Immersed in Industrial Culture's transgressive ideologies, and thus intended as perversions of contemporary media and politics, Coil produced "Horse Rotovator" in 1986 as a glorification of lysergic apocalypses within Jean Genet's reversed pantheon of Catholic imagery. Within this convoluted narrative, Coil crafted an unsurpassed album of macabre tales gilded with baroque and at times carnivalesque details. Unlike the majority of their Industrial contemporaries (such as their Wax Trax cronies), Coil's plunge into the realm of the abject wasn't hamstrung by technology. As Coil was one of the first ensembles to be well equipped with early sampling technologies (specifically, the Fairlight Emulator), they masterfully hybridized their dark intentions with the synth-based craft of the new wave pop song (it should be noted that Soft Cell's Marc Almond has been a longstanding friend and guest vocalist for Coil).
With bands like Peaches and Trans Am trawling the '80s solely for the purpose of irony, Coil's work from that decade may appear today as excessively bombastic, too homoerotic, or downright dated. However, "Horse Rotovator" and the (no longer!) criminally unavailable "Love's Secret Domain" undeniably stand at the apex of Coil's extensive career.
RealAudio clip: "Anal Staircase"
RealAudio clip: "Who By Fire"
RealAudio clip: "Golden Section"

COIL Live Four (World Serpent) cd 18.98
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A splendid live album! Actually this is the first in a series of four volumes of Coil live recordings - released in reverse numerical order. And if this cd is any indication of the other three, I can't wait! The series 'begins' with the last two concerts (in Prague and Vienna) of their 2002 tour, and features the Coil lineup of mainmen Jhon Balance and Peter Christopherson; Ossian Brown and Thighpaulsandra as well as Black Sun Productions' Pierce and Massimo. As opposed to most of their recent studio recordings, each of which has had a considerably singular - primarily drone-based - focus, this presents a much wider scope of Coil's sound. Incredibly vivid soundscapes, meticulous collages, grand dramatic melodic orchestrations, seething minimal spoken word. Coil expertly traverse through all of these. If you're at all acquainted with their work, you'll hear a number of familiar segments, but they're all wonderfully incorporated into the album as a whole. I'd even venture to say that this live album makes for quite a nice introduction to Coil. That said, the one track that absolutely floored me was "Amethyst Deceivers". Although the audio sample only offers a mere glimpse, please do check it out! Of course it's all beautifully recorded, and the roar of the crowd is kept contained to in between songs - allowing you to fully immerse yourself in the performance that's in turns visceral, whimsical, and totally captivating. Ten tracks: "I Am Angie Bowie", "Last Rites of Spring", "Are You Shivering?", "Amethyst Deceivers", "A Warning from the Sun", "The Universe is a Haunted House", "Ostia", "I Don't Want to be the One", "Bang Bang", "An Unearthly Red". Recommended.
MPEG Stream: "Amethyst Deceivers"

COIL Live One (World Serpent) 2cd 23.00
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Attention Coil fans... The fourth and final volume in this series of live documents has finally arrived, and it's a double cd set. A characteristically ever-evolving, dramatic montage with heaving drones, wheezing strings and sputtering electronics punctuated by John Balance's guttural shouts and moans and other ghostly effected voices. Visceral, beautiful and deeply moving. Yet another version of "Amethyst Deceivers" (one of Cup's favorites) is included on the second disc - a slower, quieter and much more minimal rendering. Furthermore, with the recent dissolution of John Balance and Peter Christopherson's personal and artistic relationships, perhaps this will mark one of the very final releases from this astoundingly groundbreaking and deeply influential British duo. Well... then again, they've probably got a secret vault filled with as yet unreleased Coil recordings.
CD A, titled "The Industrial Use Of Semen Will Revolutionise The Human Race" features three tracks from their April 2000 performance at the Royal Festival Hall in London (please note: this UK live recording was originally released as the Time Machines limited edition cd).
CD B contains six tracks from their Barcelona concert two months later. Coil's perfoming line-up for these dates was Balance, Christopherson, Ossian Brown, and Thighpaulsandra, plus viola player William Breeze joined on in Spain.
MPEG Stream: "Everything Keeps Dissolving"
MPEG Stream: "Elves"

COIL Live Three (World Serpent) cd 18.98
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Here is the second release in this series capturing the magic of Coil in the live setting. This one presents their April 2002 performance at the Teatro Delle Celebrazioni in Bologna, Italy. For this performance Coil were Jhon Balance and Peter Christopherson; Ossian Brown, Mike York and Cliff Stapleton as well as Pierce and Massimo of the Black Sun Productions collective. Nine tracks: "Anarcadia/All Horned Animals", "Amethyst Deceivers", "Slur ", "A Cold Cell", "Broccoli", "Paranoid Inlay", "Sick Mirrors", "AYOR", and "Backwards".
MPEG Stream: "Backwards"

COIL Live Two (World Serpent) cd 19.98
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Yes, we know... although the title of this cd is Live Two, this volume is actually the third to be released in this series of live Coil recordings. To get you oriented, Live Four - the one I (Cup) have listened to most so far - was an excellent document of their most recent performances Prague and Vienna in 2002. It very effectively captured the many facets of Coil. Live Three features their Bologna, Italy concert. This is Coil's presentation in DK Gorbunova, Moscow, Russia in September of 2001. It was a much more scaled down affair in terms of personnel (as opposed to their 2002 lineup) with just four men: Jhon Balance and Peter Christopherson; Thighpaulsandra, and Tom Edwards. However in a sense it's the most raw and testosterone pumped of this series so far, and the crowd responded in kind. Six tracks in all: "Something/Higher Beings Command", "Amethyst Deceivers", "What Kind of Animal Are You", "Blood from the Air", "The Green Child", "Constant Shallowness Leads to Evil".
MPEG Stream: "What Kind Of Animal Are You"
MPEG Stream: "Constant Shallowness Leads To Evil"

COIL Love's Secret Domain (Threshold House) cd 17.98
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The re-issue of "Love's Secret Domain" from 1991 is not unlike unearthing a long lost exquisite treasure. Obsessively coveted and revered over the last decade, it re-emerges still sounding fresh and current. Sadly and strangely, this album was often pigeonholed as an industrial-dance record. Sure, it was licensed to the US on Wax Trax and Coil's longstanding association with Industrial Culture (um, they started it) certainly confused idiot rock critics who aimlessly equated industrial with the militant stomp of Front 242. Clearly, "Love's Secret Domain" is an album that stands way above the standard Wax Trax fare of the time.
During the construction of this album, Coil's core duo -- Peter Christopherson and John Balance -- had immersed themselves in the acid house culture of the UK that flourished around The KLF (I don't care what you think of "What Time is Love," The KLF were geniuses in the art of pop subversion), 808 State, and even the early bleep techno from Warp Records. To Coil, the UK rave culture reflected many of their own ideas of transgression through almost pagan rituals of communities uniting around liberating music, sexual exploration, chemical enlightenment, and the release of hidden dark energies from the body and spirit.
"Love's Secret Domain" embodied a near-perfect harmony between the dark, occultish overtones from their previous albums "Scatology" and "Horse Rotovator" and the technological futurism at the heart of rave culture. Within this synthesis, Coil has not just created a handful of singles (although "The Snow" and "Windowpane" off of this album still make great dancefloor fodder), but has articulated the entire album as a sonic narrative. Swelling through the sampledelic abstraction on "Disco Hospital" (recently covered by admitted Coil fans Matmos) and the surreal tension of "Things Happen" (with Annie Anxiety Bandez' obtuse guest vocal appearance), Coil offers "The Snow" as a magnificient techno track, with creepy cut-ups of choral elements, constantly shifting and reforming melody patterns, and an 808 techno pulse. "Windowpane" in turn is far more seductive in its low slung bassline and downtempo pace. The rest of the album continues through a darkened path of hallucinatory electronics, intricate instrumentations, and occasional bursts of subverted pop sentiment. Unlike a lot of electronica records, nothing on "Love's Secret Domain" ever feels like filler.
This is a marvelous record that even after a decade has very few rivals.
RealAudio clip: "The Snow"
RealAudio clip: "Windowpane"
RealAudio clip: "Love's Secret Domain"

COIL Moon Milk (In Four Phases): The Solstice And Equinox Singles Collected (Eskaton) 2cd 15.98
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During the past decade, Coil has undergone a drastic metamorphosis that began with the extravagantly dark electronica of "Love's Secret Domain" and continued up to the kosmische ambience of "Musick To Listen To In Dark Vol 2." With all of the albums since "Love's Secret Domain" moving far away from their perverse use of pop structures, these more recent recordings initially had very little immediate impact on us. Yet with the reissue of their solstice / equinox series of singles onto this double CD set, it is clear that Coil's newer "lunar music" requires time for it to settle and perhaps ripen with age. Well, it's taken 3 years for us to really warm up to these recordings, which at the time of their release in 1998 seemed merely adequate.
Coil intended to thematically correspond these songs' droning poetry to the solstices and equinoxes corresponding to when they were made. Mostly they center around a miasmic abstraction of spartan, dirge arrangements for a few instruments (cellos, church organs, spanish guitar), maintaining their solemn pursuit into sonic alchemy. For the most part, Coil's John Balance hushes his voice into mere whispers of his pagan recitations, which barely stand out of the lulling instrumentation, although "The White Rainbow" track from the Winter single stands out as a eulogaic song dominated by Balance's rich singing. The album works much better than as a collection of singles whose original release format seemed far too abrupt for the extended atmospheres that are common throughout the whole series.
And to piss off everybody who bought the original series, Coil included a bonus live track.
RealAudio clip: "A White Rainbow"
RealAudio clip: "Bee Stings"

COIL Musick To Play In The Dark (Chalice/World Serpent) cd 25.00
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While Coil has released a plethora of side-projects (Black Light District, Elph, Time Machines, etc.), soundtracks, and limited singles (including the solstice/ equinox series from 1998) since 'Love's Secret Domain' of 1992, they have finally released the fourth 'proper' Coil album. Dark brooding beatless synth chords and field recordings are slowly unveiled as John Balance delivers a menacing voice-over. Thighpaulsandra (Julian Cope's psychedelic sidekick) joins the band for this album, to effective means, with his Conrad Schnitzler-esque arpeggiated synth attack on 'Red Birds Will Fly Out of the East and Destroy Paris in a Night'. There's been much discussion as to whether 'Musick' holds up, as one of Coil's finer moments. But remove the pressure of the 'Coil legacy', taking it on musical merits alone, and you'll find it to be quite beautiful; a dark, brooding record of 'night music'.

COIL Musick To Play In The Dark, Volume 2 (Chalice / World Serpent) cd 25.00
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"Musick To Play In The Dark, Volume Two" is ... not as good as volume one. Obviously these are all of the newagey dregs that didn't make the cut the first time around. Sure, Coil is said to have put on one hell of show at Spain's Sonar festival with ultraviolet strippers and techno-pagan rituals, but that doesn't give them any excuse to release an album as unnecessary as this. I'm turning in my fanclub badge. More dedicated/diehard fans than I will of course want this, badly.

COIL Queens of The Circulating Library (Eskaton / World Serpant) cd 19.98
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The timeless electronic swoop of Coil's "Time Machines" repeats itself in the swelling warm drones of mostly analogue synthesis on "Queens of The Circulating Library." John Balance (without Peter Christopherson) had written a poem to be recited by Dorothy Lewis - the mother of Thighpaulsandra who aids in the breathy swells of sound.

COIL Remote Viewer (Threshold House) 2cd 26.00
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Much of the discussion elsewhere on this list about Coil's Black Antlers applies to Remote Viewer as well. This, too, was an album originally released as a limited cd-r, now reissued with considerable remastering, additional production, and even a bunch of new material, more of their signature spectral electronica. Just like Black Antlers, Remote Viewer's funereal tunes warped through the funhouse of chemicals, alcohol, and occultish leanings nowadays take on an eerily prescient quality, as founding member Jhonn Balance died nearly two years ago leaving romantic and musical partner Peter Christopherson with the task of completing the rough mixes found on the earlier cd-rs of Black Antlers and Remote Viewer.
While not really the "moon musick" of Astral Disaster or Musick To Play In The Dark, the slippery tunes of Remote Viewer are mostly devoid of Balance's voice. Instead, hurdy gurdy drones, electrically tinged violin, and sampled bagpipes spiral into an atonal ragas elegantly shifting into deranged and slightly maudlin melodies. As a whole Remote Viewer is much closer to the devilishly sampledelic breakbeat numbers on Love's Secret Domain. Delirious to say the least.
MPEG Stream: "Remote Viewing 1"
MPEG Stream: "Remote Viewing 2"

COIL Scatology (World Serpant) cd 15.98
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COIL The Ape Of Naples (Threshold House) cd 26.00
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The Ape Of Naples marks the end of an era for Coil, as the grand finale to a tumultuous career of psychotropic electronica, siddereal ambience, and post-industrial occultations. In November 2004, Jhonn Balance died as the result of an alcohol related accident. In the intervening months, his partner -- both creatively and romantically -- Peter Christopherson resurrected many of the tracks from the ill-fated Backwards sessions as well as unreleased recordings that date back to the beginning of Coil in 1982. It should be noted that Christopherson did not intend The Ape Of Naples to be lumped in with the Stolen and Contaminated series of rare and unreleased material; rather, he shaped the album to reflect his grief and melancholy.
The Backwards sessions were originally commissioned as a follow up to their seminal oblique dance album Love's Secret Domain, which emerged out of Coil's obsession with British acid house and rave culture. In fact, Trent Reznor had brought Coil to his New Orleans studio to record much of those sessions in hopes of releasing the album on his Nothing imprint. Unfortunately, more than a decade went by with only false starts and creative dead ends; and Backwards never emerged. While it's not all that clear if The Ape Of Naples is the album that Coil envisioned when they were making Backwards, The Ape Of Naples stands as a mighty triumph in the Coil pantheon of releases, ranking up there with Horse Rotovator and the aforementioned Love's Secret Domain.
What's so striking about The Ape Of Naples, especially in light of their recent albums of temporal minimalism, is their return to the song structure, and how Jhonn Balance could deliver his beautiful howlings with all of the poetry of Jean Genet. Throughout the album, Christopherson scores elegaic arrangements with an urgent interlocking for marimba and vibraphone, whose gasping repetition serves as a thematic link between all of the material both old and new. The album also features devilish marches of electronic arpeggiation laced with distant throbbing rhythms and Balance's omnipresent vocals, typified by such tracks as "Heaven's Blade" and the reprise of "Teenage Lightning" -- one of the highlight tracks from LSD. A tragically beautiful album through and through.
MPEG Stream: "Heaven's Blade"
MPEG Stream: "Teenage Lightning 2005"
MPEG Stream: "Going Up"

COIL The Ape Of Naples & The New Backwards (Important Records) 4lp 100.00
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Issued at the end of 2005, The Ape Of Naples marked the end of an era for Coil. It was the grand finale to a tumultuous career of psychotropic electronica, sidereal ambience, and post-industrial occultations. A year earlier, Jhonn Balance died as the result of an alcohol related accident. In the intervening months, his partner -- both creatively and romantically -- Peter Christopherson resurrected many of the tracks from the ill-fated Backwards sessions as well as unreleased recordings that date back to the beginning of Coil in 1982. It should be noted that Christopherson did not intend The Ape Of Naples to be lumped in with the Stolen and Contaminated series of rare and unreleased material; rather, he shaped the album to reflect his grief and melancholy.
The Backwards sessions were originally commissioned as a follow up to their seminal oblique dance album Love's Secret Domain, which emerged out of Coil's obsession with British acid house and rave culture. In fact, Trent Reznor had brought Coil to his New Orleans studio to record much of those sessions in hopes of releasing the album on his Nothing imprint. Unfortunately, more than a decade went by with only false starts and creative dead ends; and Backwards never emerged. While it's not all that clear if The Ape Of Naples is the album that Coil envisioned when they were making Backwards, The Ape Of Naples stands as a mighty triumph in the Coil pantheon of releases, ranking up there with Horse Rotovator and the aforementioned Love's Secret Domain.
In releasing The Ape Of Naples on vinyl some three years after the original cd, Important Records has bundled the 3LPs of The Ape Of Naples with a fourth LP comprised of Christopherson's further revisitations of the Backwards sessions onto an LP called The New Backwards. These tracks found here may be even better than what's found on The Ape Of Naples. The only drawback is that this 4LP set is a bit pricey, and painfully limited to 500 copies, most of which have already been snatched up.
MPEG Stream: "Heaven's Blade"
MPEG Stream: "Teenage Lightning 2005"
MPEG Stream: "Going Up"

COIL The Golden Hare With A Voice Of Silver (Eskaton) cd 22.00
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"The Golden Hare With A Voice Of Silver" collects all of the tracks that been previously released on two Russian compilations, essentially documenting the history of the transgressive British group Coil. Throughout their 20 year career, Coil has defined the pinnacles of both Industrial Culture as well as contemporary electronica through an evolving use of electronics as the vehicle for pagan rituals, apocalyptic languages, plunges into the abject, and celebrations of their homosexuality. While "The Golden Hare" would make for an excellent introduction into the work of Coil as it samples from all of the major periods ("Scatology," "Horse Rotovator," "Love's Secret Domain," "Moon's Milk," "Musick To Listen To In The Dark," etc.), die-hard Coil fans should be intrigued to know that 2 of the tracks ('A Cold Cell' and 'A.Y.O.R.') are rumored to be cuts from their ill-fated 'Backwards' album, which has been long slated for release on Nothing Records since the mid-'90s.
RealAudio clip: "Amethyst Decievers"
RealAudio clip: "The Lost Rivers Of London"

COIL The Plastic Spider Thing (Eskaton) cd 17.98
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Music for fans of Coil, made by fans of Coil, and released with the blessing of Coil. "The Plastic Spider Thing" is a remix of Coil's past works by Drazen from Black Sun Productions, a Swiss outfit that follows the Coil's aesthetic with incredible precision (often to the point of losing their own personalities to Coil's spell, when Coil themselves emphasize the necessity for individual expression). Originally, this piece was a soundtrack to a sexually explicit performance between the members of Black Sun Productions. Drawing mostly from the lunar ambience of modern Coil (i.e. post "Love's Secret Domain"), Drazen ran Coil's occultish ambience through multiple delay machines and re-sampling techniques to attain a fractured collage of pulsated loops that point back to the original Coil numbers. The lack of John Balance's whispered vocals (which were once Coil's biggest strength on early albums like "Horse Rotovator," but now are the band's weakest link) is welcome for "The Plastic Spider Thing;" but, this album never strives to escape its orbit around Coil's little black sun. If you love Coil, here's another fine album for you. If you're only curious, try the aforementioned "Love's Secret Domain" first.
RealAudio clip: "Track 6"
RealAudio clip: "Track 8"

COIL Time Machines (Eskaton) 2lp 25.00
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